Mr Bangladesh Breaks Down 3 Main Ways Producers Get Paid

Mr Bangladesh has been making beats since 1998 and his first hit single ‘What’s Your Fantasy’ by Ludacris came not long after that in 2000. He also produced the massively popular single ‘A Milli’ by Lil Wayne.

Having been in the music industry for such a long time, he knows how to get paid from making beats, and the pitfalls to look out for. In this interview, all is explained. Read on or go right to the bottom to see the video.

1) Production Fee

“One of the ways is the track. Once you sell the track to the artist, you negotiate your producer’s fee depending on what you feel you should charge.”

“In today’s time, new producers are really giving away beats. They’re really not selling them because there’s so many people making beats so artists gets tonnes of beats and usually artists work with people that are signed to them or are in pocket with them.”

“The artist would throw them the work first before they’re even thinking about you. So one avenue to really get in the game is to really just give it away. You don’t want to be talking about money when you’re really not in the race anyway.”

2) Royalty Fees

“You get a placement then you get publishing and royalties. Royalties are when the album is being sold and depending on what you charged for your beat will determine how quick you will get your royalties because they have to recoup what you charge.”

Royalty fees are collected when albums are sold.

“So if you charged $20,000 for your beat, until the artist recoups that money, you don’t really see royalties until then. That producer’s fee is just an advance on your royalties so you can play that a number of ways.”

“If it’s an artist that is humungous, that sells albums, you know you’re going to see royalty money so you might not want to charge them. You might just want to give them the beat because they’re going to recoup real fast and you’re going to see money real fast. Now if it’s an artist that isn’t really going to sell, you might want to charge them because you might not see no more money.”

3) Publishing Fees (Performance Rights)

“The third way is publishing. When you’re writing this music and you’re coming up with these rhythms and the beats and producing records, you’re writing. You’re not literally writing with a pen or a pencil, but you’re writing [music]. If your song is a single, there’s a lot of publishing in that…”

“Performance rights companies are BMI, ASCAP…they are the main one’s. I think ASCAP is the biggest if I’m not mistaken. BMI is a rival company. I was signed to ASCAP when I first got into the music industry. That was like the typical thing to do, just sign with ASCAP. They just collect your money if it’s out there somewhere, if it’s overseas, on the radio, on television somewhere and they collect it for you.”

Every time a piece of song gets played in public such as TV, radio and concerts, it’s subject to publishing/performance fees.

“Publishing companies…that’s an option of yours. Doing publishing deals are tricky because you really got to know what’s going on. You can’t just be fooled by the money or the dream somebody is selling you cos their whole option is to get you to sign with them, so they’re going to throw the money at you and size up how many artists they can call so you can go in the studio with. They’re going to try it all, especially if you have a hit on your hands.”

“Like say, for me, I’m going to speak from my experience. When I made ‘What’s Your Fantasy’, I was new. So publishing companies look for people like me…Their whole objective is to sign with their company. They’re going to throw all this money at you but you got to know what’s in them contracts. You got to know your terms and all the loopholes that can benefit you or what don’t benefit you.”

“At the end of the day, they’re not really helping you, the money gets spent and you’re kind of stuck in a situation cos you really just borrowed money. That’s all you’re doing with a publishing deal, you’re borrowing all your money.”

“So if you have money out there…’What’s Your Fantasy’ is out there in the world and it’s one of the biggest rap songs in a year, they give you an advance on that. It’s not just that, it’s other bodies of work. I had 4 or 5 other songs on Ludacris’ album so that’s more money for them to give me or me to borrow. You’re not going in thinking like this though, you’re just going in thinking that you’re finna’ get some money! You’re not thinking “if I wait 9 months and form my own company, I will make this money quicker than they’re going to make it.”

“Once you borrow that money and they recoup it…you’re splitting the rest 50-50….Whatever you do, you just got to know what you’re doing. That’s the whole objective behind that. People don’t really know what they’re doing, they just want to go get some money. Those are all the basic avenues of getting paid as a producer.”

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